Welcome

In a session with Deborah, you will first talk with her about the nature of your pain, how long you have had it, what modalities have been used on you previously in addition to what diagnoses you may have received. She is then able to draw on her many years of experience and the varied techniques she has gathered over the years to design an approach to pain relief that is uniquely effective for you.

Relief for musculoskeletal joint pain can begin with a combination of deep tissue massage,  gentle osteopathic movement, and Swedish massage to lower the level of acute pain. We then include sessions which are purely Feldenkrais Method, to make sure that the patterns and habits of movement contributing to the pains, do not return.   Your level of activity and sense of health and well being  grow with your increased ease of movement.

About Deborah

Deborah GrossDeborah Gross has been practicing massage since 1982. She graduated from the Swedish Institute of Massage and Allied Health Sciences in New York City. She has a BA from Brooklyn College and an MA from Goddard College in Vermont.  Deborah was inspired to pursue a career in pain relief after her own experience with chronic back pain.  In seeking relief she explored many approaches, both traditional and alternative, and as a result, has an unusually eclectic and effective repertoire to help others in pain. Happily, she has been pain free for many years now and bikes hikes and dances. It is her delight and privilege to bring this joy to others now.

In addition to havinga private practice, Deborah worked with in various settings, chiropractors, osteopaths, surgeons.  In 2011 she become a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. Deborah says that “…the Feldenkrais Method is like the General Theory of Relativity for body work. It offers a reasonable explanation of why other modalities might or might not work in any given situation. Feldenkrais was working with the concept of brain plasticity years before the term became popular.” As Dr. Feldenkrais himself put it, ”We’re not just after flexible bodies, we’re after a flexible brain.”

Who or What is Feldenkrais?

You may have heard the name “Feldenkrais” or the “Feldenkrais Method” but do you know who Moshe Feldenkrais was or anything about the Feldenkrais Method that he developed over many years?

Moshe Feldenkrais

He believed that awareness (mind) and body movements were intertwined and as a person organizes both, they have less pain, greater movement and overall better health.

Moshe Feldenkrais devised this system of body work over a period of nearly fifty years, working with people of all ages and abilities. It is based on our brain’s capacity for changing patterns and it presaged the concepts of brain plasticity and resiliency, now recognized by neuroscience.

The Feldenkrais Method re-trains the musculoskeletal system to minimize stress on our joints. It is done either on a bodywork table or a mat on the floor. Some sessions refine early developmental patterns (such as rolling or crawling), others work on basic functions such turning the head and neck, walking or fully lifting your arms. Feldenkrais makes it clear that all parts of the body are connected. A chronic pain in your neck might disappear when your ankle and foot make better contact with the floor as you walk. A Feldenkrais session is always a revelation.

When you get up after a Feldenkrais session you may find you relate to gravity differently. Tensions are gone. Gravity is a supportive net, rather than something to be strained against and negotiated.  Being in your body feels easier and more pleasant. Another unique aspect of this method is that it is largely unconscious. Unlike yoga and other postural approaches, you do not have to actively think about remembering to walk or hold yourself in a certain way. Your body simply accepts the new ways of movement because it feels easy and delightful to do so.